5th Grade
Ms. Porte
The Imperfect Tense
Nour K and Brayan Y
A long, long time ago
This is a past tense. The endings are -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient. The "sa" does not change.
The imperfect tense is used to express a past action that is presented as unfinished or habitual.
To conjugate a verb in the imperfect tense, the following endings are used: -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, and -aient.
In the imperfect tense, the stem of “avoir” is “av-” (j’avais); that of “être” is “ét-” (j’étais).
The imperfect indicative (or past simple) is a simple tense that belongs to the indicative mood.
It is often used to refer to events in the past.
These are the same endings for all verbs except impersonal verbs!
Use of the imperfect tense
The imperfect tense is a past tense. Traditionally, it is used to describe an action in the past that lasted for some time and may still be ongoing.
This is the perfect time to describe landscapes or talk about habits in the past. Imperfect tense 😉
I imagined
You imagined
He/she imagined
We imagined
You all imagined
They imagined
I had
you had
he/she/they had
we had
you all had
they had
You need to remember the endings: "ais-ais-ait-ions-iez-aient"